This invention relates to a signal detector, for example, to detect signals on the sense lines from a semiconductor memory.
In the semiconductor memory, the higher the density of the integrated circuit, the smaller the area of a memory cell and the larger the capacity of the load line. A smaller area for the memory cell means that the driving power of such a cell becomes lower. As the integration of the circuit progresses, therefore, it becomes necessary for a memory cell with a small driving power to drive a load with a large load capacity (for example, the capacity of the sense line), so that signals that appear at the output become necessarily small and it takes time for signals with a sufficient amplitude to appear on the load line, thereby lowering the read out speed of the memory.